Dave Tabler, Author at Appalachian History

Silk-Stocking Hill, Seneca, SC. Six of its houses were built by the Gignilliat family. Who were they, and how did they end up in the upstate?

The cake was emblazoned with Illuminated candles

Here’s a day in the life as reported in the February 14, 1930 edition of the Clinch Valley News in Raven, VA

Thousands of families, most Eastern European immigrants, streamed into the shadows of Black Mountain, KY between the World Wars to mine coal.

The town’s Latin name means ‘Vale of the Cross,’ chosen because of the cross-like form of three local streams at their junction.

“Sugar making time was looked forward to with pleasant anticipation by the young people,” writes George Benson Kuykendall in 1919.